


It's All I Ask

by changingapart



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29665065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changingapart/pseuds/changingapart
Summary: Title:It’s All I AskAuthor:SulkygeekRating:PGLength:4000 wordsSpoilers:Let’s just say through Sectionals, even though I don’t think there are anySummary:Fluff. Well, MOSTLY fluff. This is a follow-up to “Absolute Beginners”. You know that last part that chronicles their lives post high school together. This is an expansion. Mildly.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Kudos: 14





	It's All I Ask

**Title:** It’s All I Ask  
**Author:** Sulkygeek  
**Rating:** PG  
**Length:** 4000 words  
**Spoilers:** Let’s just say through Sectionals, even though I don’t think there are any  
**Summary:** Fluff. Well, MOSTLY fluff. This is a follow-up to “Absolute Beginners”. You know that last part that chronicles their lives post high school together. This is an expansion. Mildly.

\--

They are 20 years old and living in their first apartment together. They make it on money from their financial aid checks from school (they’ll have to pay this back later once they graduate in the form of student loan payments, but they don’t think about this yet), part-time jobs, the occasional part that Rachel wins while she’s in school and money from Rachel’s fathers, which they both accept with some embarrassment. Rachel plans on making her mark on Broadway so that it will never be the same again. Quinn wants a quieter sort of life-- her girl by her side, enough money in her pocket to pay the bills with some left over to have a night out and not worry about how much her meal is going to be. But she wants Rachel to get what she wants, and more than wanting what she wants, she wants what Rachel wants.

They live in the moment and agree to worry about the future another day. Mostly, they find out more about one another and discover what it _truly_ means to live together where there is no one else around to buffer their interactions, when they have to talk about paying bills and all that.

One day, Quinn intently watches Rachel as the brunette sits on the floor instead of just bending down. She seems to expend an intense amount of concentration tying her shoe, her mouth parting and the tip of her tongue slipping out ever so slightly. Quinn is curious, wondering if her girlfriend is trying to send her some kind of subliminal message, if Rachel is trying to tell her something rather than just coming out with it.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying my shoe.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Rachel continues to tie her shoe. “Damn,” she says in exasperation. “You’re distracting me!”

“From tying your shoe?”

“Yes! Be quiet a minute.”

Quinn watches Rachel and frowns. “Are you using the bunny ear method?” she asks, with a laugh.

Rachel blushes. “Stop watching me! I’m trying to tie my shoe.”

Quinn laughs. “Oh my God, you are 20 years old and you are using the bunny ear method.”

Rachel pouts. “I don’t know how to tie it the other way!” she shouts in outrage. She stands up and puts her hands on her hips. “I’m going for my run.”

Quinn stares at her in disbelief. “You don’t know how to tie your shoe?” she asks, bursting into laughter. “You don’t know how to tie your shoe?!” She wonders how she could have been with Rachel for all these years and not realized that. After all, she’s lived with Rachel

Rachel pouts and kicks at a spot on the floor. “I know how to tie my shoe,” she says defensively.

“Like a _grownup_?” Quinn teases.

Rachel is outraged. “The bunny ear method is perfectly acceptable.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Quinn says clutching her stomach and laughing so hard, she doubles over

“I’m going for a run,” Rachel huffs.

“Wait, wait,” Quinn gasps, trying to control her laughter. She laughs so hard, she brings her fists up and down without realizing she’s doing it. .

“What?”

“Let me see if I can find you some of those shoelace clips, you know, the kind with piggies and ducks on them so little kid’s shoes don’t come unlaced?”

Rachel sighs in exasperation. “ _Why_ would we have those? Are you done making fun of me?”

“No! Wait, wait. Let me see if you fit into one of my shoes-- I know I have some old running shoes with _Velcro_!” Quinn’s voice cracks as she says the last word, her voice rising up an entire octave and she can not contain her laughter anymore.

Rachel rolls her eyes as Quinn continues to laugh. She huffs, glares at Quinn, who only laughs harder at the look on Rachel’s face, and stalks toward the door.

“I’m going for a run.”

Quinn laughs. She catches up to Rachel, hugs the brunette and kisses her cheek. “Don’t worry, it’s not a deal breaker,” she murmurs. “You already look like a little kid anyway.”

Rachel snorts and gently elbows Quinn, but she turns her head to smile fondly at the blonde. “I can do other things the grown-up way,” she says petulantly.

“I know, baby.”

\--

They are 23, and can’t believe that they were better off as broke 20 year old college students than broke 23 year old college graduates.

They are poor. The rent check is always a stressor and there are lots of arguments about frivolous expenditures of money. They eat a lot of tuna (when it’s on sale, they buy in bulk) and ramen (five for a dollar) and pop a lot of generic Aspirin, because their lives are pretty chaotic. They fight a lot, drink a lot of cheap alcohol and lose a lot of things (keys, jewelry, pens, bets, etc). Their lives are absolute chaos. At 23, they wouldn’t know that they would look back on this time in their life and kind of miss it. But when they are older, they will admit that it was all fun-- the poverty, the fighting, the consumption of food with limited nutritive value, the chaos. It was fun and they miss it for a long time. Until they don’t.

At 23, they listen to a lot of music, teenager style, lying on the floor, and smiling at one another as some song evokes a particularly strong memory. Another one of their favorite ways to pass the time is to play Kill Fuck or Marry, because it’s free and they can play it without ever leaving their apartment. They’ve been playing for a few years, and Rachel demanded immunity from all answers before she agreed to play for the first time.

As the years go on, they attempt to make the game progressively more difficult to play.

One night, Quinn tries to come up with the three most difficult choices she can muster.

“Okay!” Quinn said. “Sue Sylvester, Emma Pillsbury or Puck’s mother.”

Rachel looks positively horrified. She is so horrified, in fact, that she actually does a double take and gasps, her hand clutching her heart. “Quinn! Mrs. Puckerman treated me like I was _her_ daughter. I can’t kill, marry or fuck her!”

Quinn smiles smugly. “The whole point of the game is to make it difficult.”

Rachel groans. “You are not nice.”

“You’re not with me because I’m nice.”

“You’re right. It’s because I find you so aesthetically pleasing.”

Quinn scowls, although she is pleased, bone-deep pleased that Rachel still finds her so attractive after so many years together. “Answer the question!”

Rachel thinks a moment and then sighs heavily. “Okay, I’d fuck Sylvester--”

“Seriously?!” Quinn gasps. She is genuinely horrified. She’s a little queasy and wondering if she should have even asked.

Rachel’s cheeks are pink. “Well, you have to admit, she was kind of intriguing.”

“Yeah, okay,” Quinn begrudgingly concedes. “And what about marry or kill?”

Rachel glares at Quinn. “It would be so unfair if God strikes me dead even though He should just be after you for asking this question.”

Quinn wants to laugh. “Just answer it!”

“I’d marry Emma Pillsbury and kill Mrs. Puckerman,” Rachel admits with a huff. “Because I can _not_ have sex with Mrs. Puckerman even in that hypothetical scenario and I refuse to be in a marriage without sex.”

Quinn smirks. “See? I told you were the sex-crazed one in this relationship.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Maybe you’re the only one I want to have sex with so much, okay?.”

Quinn grins. “Keep remembering that.”

\--

They are still 23, and then 24 and spend a year breaking up and then begging one another to take each other back. There are drunken 3am phone calls to one another pleading for a reconciliation. There are fights in which Rachel throws a flip-flop at the wall and Quinn accidentally-on-purpose kills a house plant that Rachel is trying to nurse back to health. There is at least one time Rachel returns to their shared apartment to find that the locks have been changed. She bangs on the door, alternately yelling and begging to be let in and Quinn sits in front of the door, listening to Rachel beg and yell. She alternately feels malicious satisfaction and profound regret for such a petty joy. Their mutual friend, Ava, eventually breaks up with both of them because Ava can no longer tolerate the unannounced 10pm visits to her apartment followed by the midnight unannounced visit in which one girl arrives to drag back an angry girlfriend.

They break up with another to find out if they actually belong together, or if they’re only together out of comfort and habit. They talk about needing to experience other people, spout clichés about setting something free to see if it comes back. They tempt fate by saying they’ll come back to one another, if it’s meant to be. They are too young to realize that when something is that good, they need to hold onto it, rather than worrying if it will last. They date other people, but do not fall in love. Their hearts twist with jealousy, regret and longing when they see each other with new romances.

It’s 12:30pm on a Sunday when Rachel calls Quinn. It’s been two months since they last spoke, two months since a hostile, screaming, crying argument that ended with angry grudge sex (‘grudgewank’, the English man that Rachel is casually dating calls it when she confesses it to him) and Rachel fleeing the apartment.

“We should start over,” Rachel says, her voice calm and soft.

“Okay,” Quinn says quietly.

They get back together and they stay together. They move back in together and they each feel like maybe they’ve just narrowly avoided disaster.

\--

They are 25, and decide that they’d rather be young-ish parents than old-sh parents. They talk about who should go first. Quinn is in grad school, and Rachel says it would be difficult to be pregnant in grad school while Quinn counters that Rachel’s career isn’t so stable that she could stop working to have a baby, whereas they could plan her pregnancy around summer and winter breaks. But Rachel decides that a family is slightly more important than a career. They ask Finn to donate his sperm and he does so, happily.

They get pregnant on the first try and Rachel smiles and jokes that she is lucky she is fertile. At 12 weeks, they start to tell their friends, even though Rachel is not showing. Their friends already suspect this is the case because Rachel is no longer drinking and Rachel is outraged and demands to know why people get suspicious any time she stops drinking. ‘I am not some inebriate!’ she exclaims in defense.

At 15 weeks, their luck runs out.

They enter into their apartment after leaving the hospital, Quinn’s hand hesitantly on Rachel’s back. Quinn unlocks the front door and turns back to look at Rachel.

“Baby,” she says softly, wanting only to comfort Rachel. She only manages to get that one word out before she winces at the poor choice of words.

Rachel bursts into tears, bolts into their bathroom and locks herself inside. Quinn follows after her and tries the door, but finds it locked. She jiggles it a few times and then starts to knock insistently. All she can hear is Rachel crying and wailing about how selfish she was at 17 for aborting a baby, and how she is clearly never meant to be a mother. She shouts at Quinn to leave her and find someone with a “hospitable womb” who can give her a family. Then Rachel starts to cry and doesn’t stop for four hours. Quinn stands outside the bathroom for two hours straight, begging and pleading. Rachel continues to cry. Quinn spends another two hours trying to pick the lock, listening to Rachel cry the entire time. She feels helpless and hopeless. Every second, every sob is like a knife twisting deeper and deeper into her heart. She doesn’t believe it will ever stop hurting.

After four hours in the bathroom, Rachel emerges, her eyes red-rimmed and shiny, but her mouth is smiling too brightly.

Rachel spends the next week running around, first taking down the nursery they’d only just started to put together and then engaging in ridiculous chores such as scrubbing the bathroom ceiling and caulking the bathtub. She tells anyone and everyone who will listen that she wasn’t all that attached to the pregnancy and she is fine. At first, some people believe her, but she gets paler, thinner and sicklier as the week goes by and people can only look at her sympathetically. “Okay, if you say so” becomes the common refrain and Rachel is blinded enough by grief and denial to believe they believe her.

She does not talk to Quinn that entire week, to Quinn, she can only say the same five words--“I don’t want to talk.”

After a solid week, Quinn comes home to find Rachel is locked in the bathroom again, and even after four hours of straight crying, Rachel refuses to come out. Another four hours pass where Quinn can no longer hear Rachel crying or doing much of anything. She sits outside the door, cross-legged with her hand on the door, pleading with Rachel to please come out. When she realizes that Rachel has been in that locked bathroom for at least eight hours, she is terrified by how long it’s been and how quiet Rachel is. She calls an all-night locksmith.

Her heart twists when the door opens and Rachel is lying on the ground, curled into a small ball, staring at the bathtub. The locksmith leaves, quietly, and bills her later. It’s $280, but Quinn is gratified for that small moment of kindness when he just leaves them alone. She tries to get Rachel to come to bed, but Rachel stays in a crumpled heap on the bathroom floor.

Quinn’s heart twists again and again over the next month when she sees Rachel spending most of her time staring at her hands and not speaking

The relationship feels over to Quinn. Rachel won’t talk, or listen. Everything Rachel does feels mechanized. Quinn is angry, helpless, distraught and tired. There is only so much she can do if Rachel has given up like this. It breaks Quinn’s heart and she knows that she will never, ever, get over this if it’s truly over.

It feels over. And it feels so unfair, because life has only started to get good.

But it isn’t over.

Quinn hears the bedroom door open one night. Rachel stands in the doorway. Rachel pauses and then crawls into the bed with Quinn. She doesn’t touch Quinn yet, and the blonde’s back is to her. It’s the first time Rachel has shared a bed with her in five weeks.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so faraway,” Rachel says, her voice so small. “I won’t do it again. Do you forgive me? Am I still your girl?”

Quinn’s eyes spill over with tears. She is crying, and it’s already messy. “You’ll always be my girl,” she says hoarsely. “Always,” she promises. “There’s nothing to forgive.” She wipes at her eyes and sniffles. “Rachel,” she says, her voice cracking. “Should we be worried about us?” It’s the one question she could never ask, and it’s the one that gets her sobbing again.

Rachel hugs her. “No,” she whispers. “We don’t ever have to worry about us.”

Quinn sniffs. “I was worried.”

Rachel swallows. “I was too. But we don’t need to worry. We’re a family and every family just starts with two.”

“We’ll have our chance,” Quinn whispers.

“I know,” Rachel whispers back.

\--  
  
They are 28 and disgustingly domestic. They’ve both become pretty good at cooking. They aren’t going to be participating in any throwdowns with Bobby Flay or attending one of those holiday cookie exchanges, but they’ve both become decent cooks, although more out of necessity than desire.

But there are still culinary disasters like this one.

Quinn sullenly slams her water glass on the table. “I know it’s awful. Stop eating it.”

There are tears in Rachel’s eyes and her nose is running. “It’s _fantastic_ ,” she says overly brightly. Time has not cured Rachel’s tendency to overcompensate for negative emotions by being relentlessly cheerful and bright. She takes a large gulp of water and sets the glass on the table.

Quinn rolls her eyes. “I put too much chili sauce in it,” she says. “It’s inedible. Even I’m not going to eat it. If you keep eating it, you’re going to burn a hole in your esophagus.”

Rachel puts her fork down and drinks the rest of her water. “Oh my _God_ ,” she says, “too much chili sauce,” she gasps. “Every bite is like a landmine in my mouth.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Quinn says, exasperated. It is that bad, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“My nose is running and like, my eyes keep tearing up like I was cutting onions,” Rachel says. “Oh God, it’s so spicy!” Rachel says this with such desperation, Quinn halfway expects her to start wailing, gnashing her teeth, beating her chest and tearing her clothes. Biblical style. Rachel gets up to get a drink of water. “So spicy!” she exclaims with a moan, wiping at her eyes.

“It’s not that bad!”

Rachel comes back to the table, gulping down water greedily. She sighs in relief. “You barely touched yours,” she accuses looking at Quinn’s plate. She’d barely been able to see it through the veil of tears that pricked her eyes while she ate, but now she sees Quinn’s plate clearly. It is undoubtedly the spiciest thing she’s ever eaten in her entire life and she’d once accepted a hundred bucks to eat a large wad of wasabi as a broke college student.

“Were you going to let me eat that entire plate?”

Quinn is amused. “I was going to see how far you took it,” she confesses

Quinn can always count on Rachel to eat whatever she cooks, even if it is terrible, with a big smile. It’s nice to have someone who loves her so much she eats her worst creations without complaining about it.

Quinn thinks about her mother, and what a fabulous cook her mother was. Even now, there are times in her life that she longs for a meal cooked by her mother. She wishes she had a mother who actually talks to her, but she doesn’t. She finds herself longing to call her mother to ask how her mother made a particular dish or favorite meal. Quinn is bound and damned determined that she’s going to have a set of meals that her kids are going to _love_ once they come into the world. She wants to have her daughters (or sons) call her up one day and ask her, “Mom, how do you make _______” and she will tell them. She doesn’t want much out of life anymore, because she has nearly everything she wants and needs, but she wants _that_.

Rachel smiles at her and takes another hesitant forkful. “It’s really not that bad,” she wheezes.

Quinn sighs. “Let’s order Chinese.”

\--

They are 30 when their first child is born. Mia is born with a full shock of dark, dark hair. She is so tiny-- 17 inches and 5 lbs, 1oz. Quinn jokes that it’s clear that this child is going to take after Rachel and need a special stool to reach the higher shelves, but she is actually terrified by how small this baby is, how fragile.

Nothing could have prepared them for how their lives change. They worry the baby will stop breathing in the middle of the night, they worry if their toys and stuffed animals are toxic, they worry if there is mold in the walls of their apartment, they loathe anyone who drives too fast or recklessly, they wish death upon pedestrians who jostle the baby carriage. They are amazed by how cute they think baby spit is, laugh about baby poop and baby vomit, giggle over baby farts and want to cry when they see baby smiles. Their hearts swell with such love for this baby, their hearts break and are put together again when their child’s tiny hand curls around one of their fingers.

Quinn thinks about the child she gave away. Rachel thinks about the baby she aborted and then the child she lost. Parts of them do wonder if God will punish them for their actions through their child. This thought keeps them up at night. They will spend the rest of their lives periodically struck with insomnia wondering what they would do if they ever lost any of their children. When you love something that much, there is always the fear that you will lose it and it is a fear that haunts them both.

Tina sends them all of little Stella’s old clothes and there are onesies with “I love my mommy”, “adorable” and “all mommy wanted was a massage” written on them. There is also a disconcerting amount of Hello Kitty baby apparel. As the kids get older, Tina will send everything from princess attire, tutus, ballet shoes to a Batgirl costume once little Stella Chang-Abrams got to voice her own desires. Mia falls in love with the Batgirl costume and for a straight month in her third year of life, she refuses to wear anything but the Batgirl costume.

There will be two more children after that, and each time, Quinn and Rachel will look at one another and think “our lives are just beginning.”

“No turning back?” one would ask the other.

“No turning back,” the other would assure.

Quinn looks at her family-- her girl, their three little kids and their yippy brainless terrier mix that followed Rachel home one day. Quinn loathed Cow with every fiber of her being when he first appeared, but she kind of loves the little mutt now. Their lives are chaos-- there is always someone crying, someone mad at someone else, meal times and bath times are veritable wars. But Quinn loves it.

‘Dear God,’ she prays. ‘This is all I ask.’

She remembers a time when she prayed for _everything_ she wanted. Money, popularity, beauty, a car, a pony, a good exam grade. But now all she wants is what she has. Her girl, their kids and their dog by her side.

It’s not a perfect life, but she’s happy, her girl is happy and their kids at least, _seem_ happy. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly, _exactly_ what she wants.

So now she only has one simple prayer. “Dear God, please let me keep this. This is all I ask.”

It’s a lot to ask for, but it’s all she wants, all she needs.

It’s all she asks.


End file.
